Online Database Tutorials in YouTube

Axe Library is proud to announce the creation of two online tutorials to be used by students, faculty, staff, and the general public in order to learn more about databases. Links to them may also be included in email, Angel, and syllabi, among other locations.

The tutorials were created by Waudenna Agee and Barbara Pope using a combination of Microsoft PowerPoint 2007, Windows Moviemaker, and a headset microphone. The tutorials came out of a project whose aim is to increase instruction and promotion of library resources. The project will be presented at the College and University Libraries Section (CULS) Conference in Hays, Kansas in October.

Agee and Pope acknowledged the increasing array of online resources with a variety of interfaces and the increasing prevalence of online classes or classes with an online component. Because of this and other factors, many students do not come to the library and so lack information about how to search databases.

The tutorials have been posted on YouTube and links to them will be available on the library’s website. So far, tutorials on the ERIC database and interlibrary loan are all that is available, but several more are anticipated.

The Axe Library Reference channel on YouTube is located at http://www.youtube.com/user/axelibraryreference.


Searching the ERIC Database
http://www.youtube.com/user/axelibraryreference#play/all/uploads-all/1/r2Ag_BaQyLA

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
http://www.youtube.com/user/axelibraryreference#play/all/uploads-all/0/1Wy35TzBQ0w


If you have any questions about these tutorials or other Axe Library databases or resources, please do not hesitate to contact Axe Library at ext. 4894 or 4884.

Now Available: American History in Video

History buffs, scholars, students or anyone interested in American history and life now have available over 1200 videos available covering the 16th century to the 20th century. This new collection, added to the Axe databases in March, will grow to 5000 titles in a few years.

American History in Video includes public affairs videos from CBS’ Longlines Chronoscope, documentaries from A&E Television network’s History Channel and Biography and movie theatre newsreels from the 40s to the 60s covering war, politics, fashion, sports and more. Contents can be browsed by historical event, titles, newsreels, historical era, places, and more or searched by keyword.

Alexander Street Press has added value to the American History in Video collection with a variety of searching capabilities. In addition to multiple ways to browse, features include an advanced search, ability to view thumbnail images, do transcript searching, and create embeddable links, user-created playlists and clips. All tracks, clips, playlists, videos, web pages, etc. have permanent URLs to allow for emailing, bookmarking, hyperlinks in web pages, and more.

The added value makes American History in Video equally useful for research, classroom lectures, and multi-media presentations. For a list of currently available titles, go to: http://ahiv.alexanderstreet.com/Browse/Video .

Take a look at “Forces of Darkness” (part of the series, The Men Who Killed Kennedy) http://ahiv.alexanderstreet.com/View/520769 .

Or, a video on Charles Lindbergh’s life http://ahivfree.alexanderstreet.com/View/519297 .

Locate the American History in Video collection from the Library homepage (http://library.pittstate.edu/) by clicking on “Databases by Title”.

If you would like more information, of if you have questions about this, or any one of our online databases, please call the Axe Reference Desk at ext. 4894.

Friends of Axe Purchase Science DVDs for the Axe Film Collection

Friends of Axe has appropriated funds to purchase films on physics, science and astronomy for the Axe Film collection. The films on physics are from the Films Media Group (Also known as Films for the Humanities and Sciences) and the ones on astronomy and science are from WGBH.


Physics ~

Albert Einstein and the Theory of Everything -Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku and experts from Cambridge, MIT, and elsewhere discuss Einstein’s revolutionary time/space theories of 1905, the ascendancy of quantum mechanics and string theory, and Einstein’s unswerving belief that the laws of nature—elegant and precise—must reveal a universe of divine predictability down to the last subatomic particle.


Newton’s Revolution: Understanding Motion - Simple experiments and dramatic dialogues with Aristotle, Galileo, and Sir Isaac Newton illustrate how our understanding of motion and gravity has evolved. Students can see how Galileo separated motion into its horizontal and vertical components and how Newton, with his Law of Universal Gravitation, demonstrated that orbits are elliptical and why the Moon does not fall to Earth—but is falling.


Electrostatics - This program explores basic electricity as it was perceived by Benjamin Franklin and other early theorists, as well as the principles of positive and negative charge, conduction and induction, atoms and electrons, and elementary charge. Coulomb’s Law is related in detail. Insulators, semiconductors, and superconductors are also explained and demonstrated. Specific modules include Electricity, Positive and Negative, Conduction and Induction, Atoms and Charge, Elementary Charge, Coulomb’s Law, and Insulators and Conductors.

Astronomy ~

Death Star – This film probes the deep mysteries of gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful celestial explosions since the big bang. Shows how a powerful burst can destroy our planet or even our entire galaxy.

The Elegant Universe - Known as string theory or superstring theory, this startling idea proposes that the fundamental ingredients of nature are inconceivably tiny strands of energy, whose different modes of vibration underlie everything that happens in the universe. The theory attempts to unite the laws of the large -- general relativity -- and the laws of the small -- quantum mechanics -- breaking a conceptual logjam that has frustrated scientists for nearly a century.

The Ghost Particle - Every second, trillions of ghostly particles pass through our bodies without us feeling a thing. These particles, called neutrinos, have no electric charge, so they are invisible to all normal scientific equipment. Physicists John Bahcall and Ray Davis took on the seemingly impossible quest of hunting down the elusive particles and finally found the clues they needed at the world’s deepest nickel mine in northern Canada and a giant tank of ultra-pure water inside a Japanese mountain. And their ultimate conclusion about the true nature of the ghost particle would prove even more bizarre than anyone had suspected.

Monster of the Milky Way - A supermassive black hole is hiding right in the center of our own galaxy. Eventually, it will blast jets of radiation millions of miles its space, incinerating everything in its neighborhood, including planet Earth. The film takes viewers on a scientifically accurate voyage into the belly of a supermassive black hole. When will it erupt and destroy the Milky Way?

Origins - Origins explores new insights into the formation and evolution of our universe - of the cosmos, of galaxies and galaxy clusters, of stars within galaxies, of planets that orbit those stars, and of different forms of life that take us back to the first three seconds and forward through three billion years of life on Earth to today's search for life on other planets.

Saturn’s Titan – Voyage to the Mystery Moon – Scientists think clues to the origins of life or even living microbes could be hidden under the thick orange clouds of Saturn’s largest moon . With that in mind, US and European scientists designed and built the ingenious Cassini-Huygens space probe. As the probe approached Saturn, it captured astonishing images of Saturn’s rings. The film’s climax comes with the touchdown on Titan. As the probe penetrates the orange haze, it unveils a bizarre landscape drenched in liquid methane, more surprising than the scientists ever suspected.

Science ~

Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial - Describes how the issue of Intelligent Design tore apart the small town of Dover, PA in 2004, when the local school board ordered science teachers to read a statement to their high school biology students suggesting that there is an alternative to Darwin’s theory of evolution called intelligent design. Intelligent design purports that life is too complex to have evolved naturally and therefore had to have been designed by an intelligent agent. The science teachers refused to comply with the order, and alarmed parents filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the school board of violating the separation of church and state. The film follows the six week trial of Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover School District, et al., which was closely followed by an international audience via news media from around the world.